Give him a month, and he'll make you proud to come back to the playground.

Give him a summer, and he'll turn your little boy into a Little Leaguer.

If you call now, maybe he can squeeze you in next summer.

Andersen is as popular among Pacific Palisades baseball parents as ranch-flavored sunflower seeds.

He has a full schedule of 50 to 60 students, at one-half hour per lesson.

He has 15 on a waiting list.

Some parents could buy their kid a pair of sneakers for what they are willing to pay him for those 30 minutes.

"I can't take any more clients," he said. "Already, I'm calling parents and telling them I'm not going to have room for their child this season."

Those parents are not thrilled.

One Palisades mom was recently overheard remarking to a dad, "The other kids on his team have Patrick, why doesn't our child?"

Another parent described one Palisades Little League attitude as this:

Either you have Patrick, or you don't.

"At first I felt guilty," said Andersen, in his seventh year. "It was like, I don't want to be paid to help your son. But then, you know. . . ."

Is America great, or what?

*

This is not an indictment of the Pacific Palisades Baseball Assn., renowned for its safety measures and the absence of ugly scenes in the stands.

This is not an indictment of Andersen, a former college pitcher whose tutoring career started when he helped a business partner's son learn to throw.

This is about a question confronted by every household with a son or daughter involved in that potential bad memory of youth baseball.

When is enough enough?

When does loud encouragement become public scolding? When does a parent's dream becomes a child's dread? And how exactly does a backyard game of catch become 30 minutes with Patrick Andersen?

"Parents here who do not have the knowledge to teach their kids the right way, they want them to learn, they go to Patrick," said Jim Harth, former Palisades youth coach who sent his son to Andersen. "It's all for the kid's well being."

That makes it sound no different from piano lessons or an art class, and perhaps it is not.

But there is a nagging feeling that this is sometimes not about enriching lives, but avoiding embarrassment.

The child doesn't want to be embarrassed by being the worst one on the team. The parent doesn't want to be embarrassed by watching it.